Reflecting on my failed startup and building my Personal Brand
Lessons learned and the power of a One-Person Business in a changing world.
I worked at a Big 4 firm a few years ago. That didn’t last long. The corporate world was a nightmare for me. Later I served as Head of Product at a large innovation consultancy.
I always loved the idea of building a startup. I had some side hustles I tried throughout the years. My experience building my first real startup brought a lot of learnings through awesome moments of happiness and pain. I used to work 12, 14 hours per day. Weekends? Working.
One of our angel investors did not fulfill their commitment, causing our runway to shrink from 12 to 4 months overnight. We decided to close the business. We had an awesome idea: To become the A Cloud Guru of Web3. We would train developers inside corporations for blockchain development. Really awesome, right? But our timing was wrong.
Here is the thing: This is all a game.
The corporate world is a game. The startup world is a game.
A lot of people like these games. A lot of people hate these games, but they keep playing because they think that’s their only option.
Closing that startup prompted me to focus on building my personal brand and creating a One-Person Business.
This is a different game. A hard one. But, in my opinion, easier than the startup game and much more rewardful than the corporate one.
This is what I have been doing for the last few years and I have to say it: It’s… Intense.
While this lifestyle may not be suitable for everyone and can be emotionally challenging at times, it has given me a lot of freedom and allowed me to spend more time with my family. I’m able to spend a lot of time with Nathalia, my wife, and with Simba, our French bulldog. I can also frequently visit my dad and have lunch with my mom.
I reached almost 60,000 followers on LinkedIn creating content and this really changed my life. My posts there reach 11,000,000+ impressions per year. This was the backbone of everything.
Brands started to reach out asking me to become their brand ambassador. Enterprises started to quote me for their internal events to talk about AI and Web3. Professionals started to ask me if I could coach them into this “personal brand” and “linkedin game”.
Fun fact: I am making more money than I did in all my previous jobs, doing things I love to do, with much less stress and more health.
More important than that, I’ve never been so happy.
It's not easy. But very, very rewardful.
For a long time, I believed that my mission was to build the next unicorn. I don’t give a shit about unicorns or the corporate game anymore.
The world is huge. There are hundreds of different games we can play to be happy. A lot of people are happily playing the corporate or the startup game. And that’s awesome. We just need to learn which is the best game for us.
I strongly believe this “One-Person Business” trend is just getting started. Not only that, but building a powerful Personal Brand is paramount in a world full of intense layoffs and dominated by artificial intelligence.
2 weeks from now I will be traveling with my wife to spend one week exploring some mountains here in Brazil. We will get a beautiful cabin and explore what the region has to offer. My One-Person Business will continue to run normally. I do not need to ask for permission for a boss or something like that. That’s freedom for me.
I’m not sure how the next 10 years will unfold. But I’m excited to test things out and continue to build a simple, profitable, and powerful One-Person Business that allows me to be there for my family.
I hope you're happy playing the game you're in right now, whatever it may be.
You’re invited to join me on this journey. It will be a pleasure to share it with you.
If you want to learn my step-by-step and the method I developed to grow my LinkedIn, learn more about the Amplified System by clicking here.